David Cameron has said the BBC has "serious questions" to answer over why it
"changed its story" over the reasons Newsnight dropped an investigation into
Jimmy Savile.

Mr Cameron said the BBC's announcement that Newsnight's editor Peter Rippon had misled the public when he set out his reasons for the decision was "concerning".

Mr Rippon was told to step aside from his job by the BBC director general, George Entwistle, while an independent investigation is carried out into why a film about Jimmy Savile's child abuse was shelved last December.

He wrote a blog earlier this month denying several accusations that had been levelled at the programme, but the BBC was today forced to issue a lengthy correction to his blog saying it was "inaccurate or incomplete in some respects”.

Mr Cameron, answering questions after a speech in London, said: "The nation is appalled, we are all appalled by the allegations of what Jimmy Savile did and they seem to get worse by the day.

"So every organisation that was involved with him - whether the NHS or whether the BBC - needs to get to the bottom of what happened.

"The developments today are concerning because the BBC has effectively changed its story about why it dropped the Newsnight programme about Jimmy Savile.

"These are serious questions, they need to be answered. They need to be answered by these independent reviews that the BBC has established and I am sure that they will be."

As it issued its correction of Mr Rippon's blog, the BBC said it “regrets these errors”, and the BBC Trust, which governs the BBC, said it was “deeply concerning” that there had been inaccuracies in the corporation's description of why Newsnight did not show the Savile film.

The BBC said Mr Rippon had been wrong on three counts in his blog.

He had wrongly said Newsnight had no evidence against the BBC, when in fact its reporters had been told Savile abused girls on BBC premises.

He said all of the victims interviewed by Newsnight had spoken to police, when they had not, and that no other abusers were named by the women, when in fact one of them had made allegations against Gary Glitter.

He also wrongly said Newsnight had no evidence that staff at the Duncroft approved school knew about Savile’s child abuse.

The embarrassing about-turn by the BBC not only throws Mr Rippon’s future into doubt, but adds to the increasing pressure on Mr Entwistle, as Panorama prepares to broadcast a bombshell documentary tonight detailing who knew what about the decision to shelve the Newsnight film.

Mr Rippon will “step aside with immediate effect”, the BBC said, but it did not explain whether he will be doing another job while the investigation is carried out.

The correction issued by the BBC will fuel accusations that the corporation tried to spin its way out of the Savile scandal by misleading the public about the reasons the Newsnight film was dropped.

The BBC has launched an independent review into the axeing of the Newsnight film, led by Nick Pollard, the former boss of Sky News, to look into possible management failings over the Newsnight investigation.

But the BBC said that “on the basis of material available now”, it had become apparent that Mr Rippon’s blog was wrong.

A statement from the BBC Trust said: “It is deeply concerning that there have been inaccuracies in the BBC's own description of what happened in relation to the Newsnight investigation. While it is right that the Director General should seek to correct those inaccuracies, the public will want to know, as the Trust does, exactly what happened. The Chairman has therefore today asked for and received confirmation that Nick Pollard’s independent inquiry will fully investigate how these inaccuracies came about and the handling of them once they became apparent.”

It came as John Whittingdale, chairman of the committee, said it took the BBC “a long time to wake up to how serious this matter is” and that their original explanations of why a Newsnight investigation was dropped "look very thin today".

“It does go to the heart of the question of the BBC’s own integrity and trust in the BBC,” he said.

“This is why it’s so intensely damaging to the BBC and why it is very important it is dealt with very quickly.

“The BBC have done the right things, although belatedly; it took a long time to wake up to how serious this matter is."

Speaking ahead of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee meeting tomorrow, he said the BBC Director General would face questions over how the corporation handled the scandal.

Mr Whittingdale this morning suggested George Entwistle may have failed to ask even the most basic questions about a “bombshell” Jimmy Savile Newsnight investigation, after allegedly being told of its existence.

George Entwistle outside BBC headquarters (Steve Parsons/PA)

Saying it seemed “bizarre” that Mr Entwistle did not probe further into what the programme may reveal, he said the response in itself “raises questions”.

His comments follow revelations from a BBC Panorama programme that Mr Entwistle had a “ten second” conversation with head of news Helen Boaden, in which she warned him the Christmas schedule may have to be changed in light of a Newsnight investigation.

Mr Whittingdale said: “As we understand it from Panorama, Helen Boaden did mention this to George Entwistle in a conversation said to last less than ten seconds.

“That in itself raises questions.

“If you were the Director of Vision and you were told, at a time when you were commissioning programmes paying tribute to Jimmy Savile, that Newsnight might be about to reveal a bombshell, you wouldn’t just have a ten second conversation.

“You would say tell me more: ‘I’m about to go public putting out this programmes making out that Jimmy Savile was this saint’.

“And yet it appears from this that he didn’t even ask the question about what the Newsnight investigation was about.”

He added he “absolutely” wanted to get to the bottom of the issue, saying: “Obviously the decision to go ahead with the tributes in retrospect looks wrong if they were already aware of what was going on.

“Also, it was a decision taken by George Entwistle.”

Mr Whittingdale said the committee would now be investigating three key issues in light of the revelations.

The first would be how Savile was able to “behave in this way over quite a long period of time”, including on BBC property, while “no-one appeared to notice or do anything about it.

The second was why the commissioning of a tribute programme to Savile went ahead even after allegations of abuse came to light, and whether Mr Entwistle knew about it.

Lastly, they will assess the dropping of the Newsnight programme and whether the BBC’s account of what happened was accurate, he said.

Speaking to Sky News this morning, Mr Whittingdale said: “The BBC have done the right thing, although belatedly; it took a long time to wake up to how serious this matter is.”

A Panorama documentary due to be aired tonight is expected to plunge the BBC into fresh controversy by claiming the corporation pulled an investigation into the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal after coming under pressure from senior managers.

The hour-long documentary lifts the lid on the extent to which the higher echelons of the corporation were aware of the claims against the late DJ.

BBC foreign editor John Simpson describes the scandal as "the worst crisis that I can remember in my nearly 50 years at the BBC".

Newsnight editor Peter Rippon maintains the piece - which was due to run last December - was pulled for editorial reasons, and not because the potentially damaging revelations coincided with a planned tribute to the star.